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TODOROVDEN

2/20/2010 10:51:00 AM

Name day of everyone named Todor, Todorka, Teodor/a, Theo, Dora.

Ritual table: rite bread, lentils, mushroom soup.

The first Saturday of the Easter Lent, the East Orthodox calendar celebrates Todorovden (St. Theodore’s Day) – the feast is also popular by the names of “Tudoritsa” or “Horse Easter”. As the tradition requires, early in the morning on Todorovden, the young unmarried ladies and the newlywed ones used to knead and bake bread-rolls, then take them to the church and hand them to their neighbors and relatives for horses’ health's sake. At noon horse racings were organized, and the riders were all boys or young men. A kerchief was tied around the neck of the winner-horse. After the racings, the girls used to expect the first rain to come and then they used to wash their hair using the rainwater gathered in the horseshoe footmarks - so that their hair would grow long and flexible as the horse mane is.

Horse races are organized onTodorovden – a custom in which the whole village participates. The men clean their horses, adorn their reins with colorful beads, then put their new shirts on and take the horses out for the race. The winner in the race is awarded – the horse receives new reins and its owner a new shirt or towel. Then the rider mounts his horse again and visits all houses in the village to greet the hosts for the holiday. He is received with joy and his horse is offered water.

“To be or not to be – that is the question” is a quote of one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays Hamlet. It will sound in 32 languages in the Small Basilica in Plovdiv on occasion of the International Mother Language Day marked on February 21.